TABLETS OF STONE
March, 2026
• One of the most unusual Stations of the Cross I have come across is a set of clay tablets produced by Carmel Cauchi, a Maltese artist who settled in the UK in the late 1960s. From there on he designed and made hundreds of religious items for English Catholic churches.
All 14 stations feature only the head of Christ, portrayed to reflect his expression at each stage of the Way of the Cross. Pictured above is the first station – Jesus is Condemned to Death – and closeup detail of his face and a pointer to the line from Isaiah (50 : 7) – “I have set my eyes like flint…”
Flint (silica) is a very hard sedimentary rock, and is often used as a mix in clay modelling and stoneware. So these stations can also be viewed as tablets of stone, and identified with the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, or Tablets of Testimony, that Moses was given by God on Mount Sinai as written in the Book of Exodus.
Like Moses, Jesus was a lawgiver. In Matthew’s gospel (5 : 17) Jesus said, “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them.”
The expression – eyes set like flint – mirrors Christ’s determination to persevere in his mission and passion, pointing to another passage from Isaiah (50 : 6) – “For my part I made no resistance, neither did I turn away. I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my beard; I did not cover my face against insult and spittle.”
On every tablet we are invited to view the face of Jesus and be reminded that we walk and share with Christ in his Passion during our own times of pain and suffering… “Now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror; but then we shall be seeing face to face… (1 Corinthians 13 : 12).
